I have a wonderful husband, but I'm still not happy.

[CurlySpice]

I love my husband entirely. He's a wonderful man: honest, caring, hardworking, affectionate, witty, intelligent, goal-oriented; and I'm fairly certain that he would do just about anything for me. Any yet, I find myself doubting my marriage.

 

We started dating 7 years ago (we were both 18), and have been married for 3 perfectly acceptable years. From the beginning there wasn't a whole lot of sexual fire between us and his complete lack of common sense drove me crazy but I could laugh at him, shake my head, and move on (now I find myself getting short with him, totally irritated, and taking my temper out on him when these actions are nothing new. I just have no patience.)

 

About 4 years ago we began having more serious intimacy issues and we went about six months without having sex. It was my fault, and I know it. I'm not sure if it is that I was just not attracted to him sexually or what but it caused us to get into small arguments, nothing too serious. Miraculously, he still proposed, and since I couldn't (and still can't) find anything blatantly wrong with him (he makes a really wonderful husband) I said yes, and we tied the knot! As with many couples, we entered a routine and things got mundane. Not that mundane is bad, it's not, but life just wasn't terribly interesting on any level.

 

A year after we got married, we decided to start a family and for the first time in several years we began having a more sexual, albeit awkward, relationship. We turned to things like BDSM and Roleplay to spice it up and still, things weren't great. I began to be disgusted by the thought of having sex with him (even though he's a perfectly attractive person with a strong jawline and a nice body) and the same day that I said that I didn't want to keep trying (because I was starting to doubt my relationship with him) I found out that I was pregnant. It reunited us. We had a goal together, a mission, and I made the decision to keep on trying and appreciate all of his wonderful traits. Again, I still can't find any reason that he makes a poor husband, he's truly wonderful to me.

 

Eventually I miscarried and the experience was heartwrenching... at first. I realized that I had a chance at a new life. A start over. While he was wanting to start trying again, I just wanted to get out while I had the chance: to get away from monotony and to live for myself. To know if I made the right decision, to know what good sex was like, to know what the world had to offer a single woman with big dreams. With his blessing and financial support, I quit my job and enrolled in Culinary School and began to realize a dream that I had been having for years. While it keeps me distracted, I still just want to get away from him. He wants to share his day with me and wants me to share with him, he wants to love me, wants to make love to me, wants to have a family with me, and so on... but I just want to be free.

 

What is wrong with me? Am I just ungrateful? How can I leave someone who doesn't have any horrible flaws and who loves me so entirely? He is leaving for Spain in August for a year for a graduate school program and I see it as my way out. I've made little noises to him about being unhappy but we basically just continue on as great friends and roommates, but not lovers. I don't want to go to Spain, I don't want to be with him romantically, and I don't want to ruin his life and break his heart and dream for the future...

 

Is this common in marriages or am I just a selfish bitch? Help!

[Crossroads66]

This is very common in marriages, and no, you are not a selfish bitch.

 

Your scenario sounds very similar to mine - nothing "wrong" with my wife, who has a lot of positives (although I can relate totally to what you said about a lack of common sense driving you nuts). I think when you're young, and inexperienced in life and love, you can marry someone who "ticks boxes" rather than someone with whom you have a deep connection.

 

I'm afraid though, the genie is out of the bottle for you now and it's never going back. You have two choices. Neither are easy.

 

1. Persevere with your marriage, perhaps go into counselling. You could reach a state of workability, but I'm afraid you are never going to shake the feeling you've made a wrong choice and could, and should, have started afresh.

 

2. Make a clean break now. As refreshing as that may sound, you're in for two years of hell if you go down that path. Life may be harder for a long time. But I suspect in spite of that you'll have inner peace.

 

Good luck.

[pteromom]

since I couldn't (and still can't) find anything blatantly wrong with him (he makes a really wonderful husband) I said yes

 

This is really not a good reason to get married.

 

Sounds like he is a great person, but if you aren't in love with him, you are better off just moving on.

 

This isn't a situation where things were great and you need to learn how to make them great again - this is a relationship where it has always been "acceptable". So if you want to have a life that is "acceptable", then stay with him. If you want to take the risk to go for a life that is GREAT, then you have to move on.

[Ralph79]

I love my husband entirely. He's a wonderful man: honest, caring, hardworking, affectionate, witty, intelligent, goal-oriented; and I'm fairly certain that he would do just about anything for me. Any yet, I find myself doubting my marriage.

 

We started dating 7 years ago (we were both 18), and have been married for 3 perfectly acceptable years. From the beginning there wasn't a whole lot of sexual fire between us and his complete lack of common sense drove me crazy but I could laugh at him, shake my head, and move on (now I find myself getting short with him, totally irritated, and taking my temper out on him when these actions are nothing new. I just have no patience.)

 

About 4 years ago we began having more serious intimacy issues and we went about six months without having sex. It was my fault, and I know it. I'm not sure if it is that I was just not attracted to him sexually or what but it caused us to get into small arguments, nothing too serious. Miraculously, he still proposed, and since I couldn't (and still can't) find anything blatantly wrong with him (he makes a really wonderful husband) I said yes, and we tied the knot! As with many couples, we entered a routine and things got mundane. Not that mundane is bad, it's not, but life just wasn't terribly interesting on any level.

 

A year after we got married, we decided to start a family and for the first time in several years we began having a more sexual, albeit awkward, relationship. We turned to things like BDSM and Roleplay to spice it up and still, things weren't great. I began to be disgusted by the thought of having sex with him (even though he's a perfectly attractive person with a strong jawline and a nice body) and the same day that I said that I didn't want to keep trying (because I was starting to doubt my relationship with him) I found out that I was pregnant. It reunited us. We had a goal together, a mission, and I made the decision to keep on trying and appreciate all of his wonderful traits. Again, I still can't find any reason that he makes a poor husband, he's truly wonderful to me.

 

Eventually I miscarried and the experience was heartwrenching... at first. I realized that I had a chance at a new life. A start over. While he was wanting to start trying again, I just wanted to get out while I had the chance: to get away from monotony and to live for myself. To know if I made the right decision, to know what good sex was like, to know what the world had to offer a single woman with big dreams. With his blessing and financial support, I quit my job and enrolled in Culinary School and began to realize a dream that I had been having for years. While it keeps me distracted, I still just want to get away from him. He wants to share his day with me and wants me to share with him, he wants to love me, wants to make love to me, wants to have a family with me, and so on... but I just want to be free.

 

What is wrong with me? Am I just ungrateful? How can I leave someone who doesn't have any horrible flaws and who loves me so entirely? He is leaving for Spain in August for a year for a graduate school program and I see it as my way out. I've made little noises to him about being unhappy but we basically just continue on as great friends and roommates, but not lovers. I don't want to go to Spain, I don't want to be with him romantically, and I don't want to ruin his life and break his heart and dream for the future...

 

Is this common in marriages or am I just a selfish bitch? Help!

 

Oh my god. Your story hits so close to home it triggers.

 

I can tell you from personal experience where mistakes have been made from my point of view:

 

1. "From the beginning there wasn't a whole lot of sexual fire between us"

That's a red flag. I don't know if you had other BF's in the past, but you should have known that a lack of sexual chemistry literally is a relationship killer almost 90% of the time. I guess that's why a lot of guys end up being "Friend-zoned" instead of made Husbands.

 

2. "I was just not attracted to him sexually"

Again, 3 years into a relationship with him, if you still didn't feel sexual attraction towards him, that should have prompted you to flat out end it. It seems like the guy was a good catch and you figured you could sweep the sexual inadequacies under the rug given all the perks he offered as a potential husband. You love him as a friend, but you're not in love with him. You probably never were.

 

3. "since I couldn't (and still can't) find anything blatantly wrong with him (he makes a really wonderful husband) I said yes,"

That is the WORST reason base your marital foundation on. I married my wife because I was madly in love with her and I was willing to deal with anything life threw my way, financially, emotionally, morally... anything ... as long as it meant I got to wake up next to that woman every day for the rest of my life. To agree to marry someone because there's no reason to say no, is really setting yourself up for disappointment.

 

4. "I began to be disgusted by the thought of having sex with him"

I'm gonna make a wild guess, but I'm thinking that if you do some soul searching, you will find that you were truly disgusted with yourself for having sex with him. Not the act itself, but your situation and the fact that as the wife of a good husband you had to pretty much "take it".

 

5. "Again, I still can't find any reason that he makes a poor husband".

You probably make a pretty bad wife at this point in your life. You are not ready. I'm not saying you're a bad person. You are being honest and are trying not to hurt him. But you are really confused and have made several mistakes down the road that have led to this. His only mistake was not understanding how you truly felt. Maybe deep down he knows it and he's in denial about it.

 

6. "to know what good sex was like"

I have to give you props for not cheating on your husband with another man. And having great sex is a right no person should be denied in their life. Know this though, you can't have it ALL in a partner. A seemingly perfect guy might end up cheating on you, or being financially irresponsible. A faithful partner who provides great sex might have other alcohol issues, etc... However it's clear to me that great sex is a priority to you that your husband can't provide because you don't feel any passion for him. My advice is move on, and find someone who you can be in love with, but also remember nobody is perfect and take the good with the bad.

 

7. "How can I leave someone who doesn't have any horrible flaws and who loves me so entirely?"

You do so by going to marriage counseling, and opening up and telling him the truth about your feelings. Tell him that you are miserable and that there is nothing he can do to change that. That he deserves someone who can love him back the way he loves you.

 

8. "I've made little noises to him about being unhappy"

Stop that. You will just confuse him. Be straight and to the point.

 

9. "I don't want to ruin his life"

You already kind of are. The sooner he hits rock bottom after the break up , the sooner he can rebuild his life. Preferable younger and without kids.

 

You are not a bitch, but you have to stop thinking of this guy as your safety net. He's a great guy, great husband, no real flaws and loves you to death. But all that is pointless if you don't feel the same way about him.

 

My advice, go to marriage counseling and go see a therapist. Maybe there's an underlying reason you chose to marry this person under the circumstances you mentioned that requires some self reflection.

[CarrieT]

We "old folks" have seen this over-and-over-and-over.

 

I chalk it up to "half-baked brain syndrome" that you can read about here.

 

Briefly, the frontal cortex to your brain doesn't even finish connecting until your late 20s (about the age you are now) and up until this time, you really don't have all the synapses needed to make intelligent decisions.

 

It means that until you are this age, you really aren't the person you are meant to be for the bulk of your adult life and all the things you THOUGHT you wanted and knew are changing.

 

Someone told me about it when I was in my early 20s and I didn't believe them. The New Age folks call it the Saturn Return. Trust me, you are now a different person than you were when you got married. You were a child then and you are an adult now. No reason to feel guilty that you want something different than you did before you were grown up.

[evanescentworld]

We "old folks" have seen this over-and-over-and-over.

 

I chalk it up to "half-baked brain syndrome" that you can read about here.

 

Briefly, the frontal cortex to your brain doesn't even finish connecting until your late 20s (about the age you are now) and up until this time, you really don't have all the synapses needed to make intelligent decisions.

 

It means that until you are this age, you really aren't the person you are meant to be for the bulk of your adult life and all the things you THOUGHT you wanted and knew are changing.

 

Someone told me about it when I was in my early 20s and I didn't believe them. The New Age folks call it the Saturn Return. Trust me, you are now a different person than you were when you got married. You were a child then and you are an adult now. No reason to feel guilty that you want something different than you did before you were grown up.

 

I cannot like this post, enough, and CarrieT has used the same link I have used time and time again - because it's so true.

 

To say that you and your H were probably incompatible to begin with, may be correct. It sounds like it.

To say that these differences have rooted, grown blossomed and fruited is an understatement.

 

I hate to say it, but I think it's high time you and your husband had a good talk.

[81West]

Your story reminded me of an article I read a while back and I was able to dig it out of the internet again. In a way I hesitate to post it as it's a bit gloomy and probably mostly an unlikely outcome for the majority of people who marry and divorce in their 20s. But it did float across my mind, so I will just add it to the pot as one other woman's experience who married young and divorced a good man for the dream of a more fulfilling life. If you get past the somewhat silly headline there really is a story in there. Please don't consider it 'advice' - I've never been in your situation.

 

I left the love of my life because I thought I could do better. Now I'm childless and alone at 42 | Daily Mail Online

[LoveMyCat]

I love my husband entirely. He's a wonderful man: honest, caring, hardworking, affectionate, witty, intelligent, goal-oriented; and I'm fairly certain that he would do just about anything for me. Any yet, I find myself doubting my marriage.

 

We started dating 7 years ago (we were both 18), and have been married for 3 perfectly acceptable years. From the beginning there wasn't a whole lot of sexual fire between us and his complete lack of common sense drove me crazy but I could laugh at him, shake my head, and move on (now I find myself getting short with him, totally irritated, and taking my temper out on him when these actions are nothing new. I just have no patience.)

 

About 4 years ago we began having more serious intimacy issues and we went about six months without having sex. It was my fault, and I know it. I'm not sure if it is that I was just not attracted to him sexually or what but it caused us to get into small arguments, nothing too serious. Miraculously, he still proposed, and since I couldn't (and still can't) find anything blatantly wrong with him (he makes a really wonderful husband) I said yes, and we tied the knot! As with many couples, we entered a routine and things got mundane. Not that mundane is bad, it's not, but life just wasn't terribly interesting on any level.

 

A year after we got married, we decided to start a family and for the first time in several years we began having a more sexual, albeit awkward, relationship. We turned to things like BDSM and Roleplay to spice it up and still, things weren't great. I began to be disgusted by the thought of having sex with him (even though he's a perfectly attractive person with a strong jawline and a nice body) and the same day that I said that I didn't want to keep trying (because I was starting to doubt my relationship with him) I found out that I was pregnant. It reunited us. We had a goal together, a mission, and I made the decision to keep on trying and appreciate all of his wonderful traits. Again, I still can't find any reason that he makes a poor husband, he's truly wonderful to me.

 

Eventually I miscarried and the experience was heartwrenching... at first. I realized that I had a chance at a new life. A start over. While he was wanting to start trying again, I just wanted to get out while I had the chance: to get away from monotony and to live for myself. To know if I made the right decision, to know what good sex was like, to know what the world had to offer a single woman with big dreams. With his blessing and financial support, I quit my job and enrolled in Culinary School and began to realize a dream that I had been having for years. While it keeps me distracted, I still just want to get away from him. He wants to share his day with me and wants me to share with him, he wants to love me, wants to make love to me, wants to have a family with me, and so on... but I just want to be free.

 

What is wrong with me? Am I just ungrateful? How can I leave someone who doesn't have any horrible flaws and who loves me so entirely? He is leaving for Spain in August for a year for a graduate school program and I see it as my way out. I've made little noises to him about being unhappy but we basically just continue on as great friends and roommates, but not lovers. I don't want to go to Spain, I don't want to be with him romantically, and I don't want to ruin his life and break his heart and dream for the future...

 

Is this common in marriages or am I just a selfish bitch? Help!

 

Maybe he is not all that happy either. It is hard to be happy if one party isn't and he must notice you are not interested in having sex with him. Or that you are not affectionate. You should still be in that stage where you want to touch him often, etc. and it seems you never were in that stage. He may have thought this would improve with time but he has to see that it hasn't. He has the right to be with a woman who is crazy about him, just as you have the right to find that kind of love too. Release him while you are both still young and childless.

[Mr. Lucky]

I just wanted to get out while I had the chance: to get away from monotony and to live for myself. To know if I made the right decision, to know what good sex was like, to know what the world had to offer a single woman with big dreams. With his blessing and financial support, I quit my job and enrolled in Culinary School and began to realize a dream that I had been having for years.

 

This part seems a little manipulative. Why let him support you and put you through school when you're obviously planning on leaving him ???

 

Mr. Lucky

[reconcile]

Trust me, when you turn 43 and are peri-menopausal, your sex drive will plummet and you will be even with him then. Ask yourself would like to be the one ousted for lower libido and no more. A lack of tolerance of a partner's deficits is selfish in my opinion. But communication can be key. He may agree to supervising allowing others to service you as long as you only do this with him present and no emotional deviation from your marriage. I would say that I could not do this exactly, but I might before the end. Craigslist can provide this kind of stuff. It takes all kinds apparently. Emotional abandonment is cruel in this case as he does everything else right apparently. It is not his choice that things are the way they are. No male would have it this way. Check his testosterone. Make sure he isn't gay. But do more before you abandon selfishly. What if this happened through him being paralyzed in an accident? Would you leave him? It is kind of the same thing except without paralysis and a car wreck...same end.

[CarrieT]

Trust me, when you turn 43 and are peri-menopausal, your sex drive will plummet

And when you get into your 50s or 60s, it could skyrocket again!

[reconcile]

CarrieT regarding underdeveloped brains when marrying young.

 

On this, since it is scientific in nature, I would argue that we are a successful species because of monogamy (in part) and adaptive. Even though we aren't the same person at 18 as we are 28, it doesn't mean we can't adapt and accommodate and be accommodated. It takes two willing to try and it is proven that children thrive when they have two biological parents (ergo 'monogamy'). So I wouldn't lobby for cutting ties and running to every discontent late 20 something. Beating that desire is where our success lies as humans.

[whichwayisup]

I love my husband entirely. He's a wonderful man: honest, caring, hardworking, affectionate, witty, intelligent, goal-oriented; and I'm fairly certain that he would do just about anything for me. Any yet, I find myself doubting my marriage.

 

We started dating 7 years ago (we were both 18), and have been married for 3 perfectly acceptable years. From the beginning there wasn't a whole lot of sexual fire between us and his complete lack of common sense drove me crazy but I could laugh at him, shake my head, and move on (now I find myself getting short with him, totally irritated, and taking my temper out on him when these actions are nothing new. I just have no patience.)

 

About 4 years ago we began having more serious intimacy issues and we went about six months without having sex. It was my fault, and I know it. I'm not sure if it is that I was just not attracted to him sexually or what but it caused us to get into small arguments, nothing too serious. Miraculously, he still proposed, and since I couldn't (and still can't) find anything blatantly wrong with him (he makes a really wonderful husband) I said yes, and we tied the knot! As with many couples, we entered a routine and things got mundane. Not that mundane is bad, it's not, but life just wasn't terribly interesting on any level.

 

A year after we got married, we decided to start a family and for the first time in several years we began having a more sexual, albeit awkward, relationship. We turned to things like BDSM and Roleplay to spice it up and still, things weren't great. I began to be disgusted by the thought of having sex with him (even though he's a perfectly attractive person with a strong jawline and a nice body) and the same day that I said that I didn't want to keep trying (because I was starting to doubt my relationship with him) I found out that I was pregnant. It reunited us. We had a goal together, a mission, and I made the decision to keep on trying and appreciate all of his wonderful traits. Again, I still can't find any reason that he makes a poor husband, he's truly wonderful to me.

 

Eventually I miscarried and the experience was heartwrenching... at first. I realized that I had a chance at a new life. A start over. While he was wanting to start trying again, I just wanted to get out while I had the chance: to get away from monotony and to live for myself. To know if I made the right decision, to know what good sex was like, to know what the world had to offer a single woman with big dreams. With his blessing and financial support, I quit my job and enrolled in Culinary School and began to realize a dream that I had been having for years. While it keeps me distracted, I still just want to get away from him. He wants to share his day with me and wants me to share with him, he wants to love me, wants to make love to me, wants to have a family with me, and so on... but I just want to be free.

 

What is wrong with me? Am I just ungrateful? How can I leave someone who doesn't have any horrible flaws and who loves me so entirely? He is leaving for Spain in August for a year for a graduate school program and I see it as my way out. I've made little noises to him about being unhappy but we basically just continue on as great friends and roommates, but not lovers. I don't want to go to Spain, I don't want to be with him romantically, and I don't want to ruin his life and break his heart and dream for the future...

 

Is this common in marriages or am I just a selfish bitch? Help!

 

Really seems like you care about your husband, love him but feel no sexual desire or passion for him. If it wasn't there from the beginning, you won't ever capture it with him.

 

Sadly, I suggest that you divorce him. No point in trying to fix things because your head is gone already, you detached emotionally from him and your heart just isn't in it. You can picture a life without him, not with him. That says a lot.

[CurlySpice]

This is really not a good reason to get married.

 

I can see that now, I suppose. But we were happy and when you go through life knowing that 'no one is perfect' and you find someone who has very nearly every positive trait in the book, it's hard to argue with reason. I would ask myself: Why I wouldn't want to be with someone as wonderful as him... yeah, the sex is (way) less than stellar and he's a bit of an airhead, but he loves me and is really good to me. Can I really find a better person out there for me when no one is perfect?

 

I'm still not sure I can.

Edited January 30, 2015 by CurlySpice

[stillafool]

This is why sexual chemistry is so, so important when you consider marriage. I don't think you will ever feel that connection with your husband and perhaps divorce is the best decision. He sounds like a great guy and deserves to be wanted by a woman. Let him go and both of you find the happiness you deserve.

[CurlySpice]

Trust me, when you turn 43 and are peri-menopausal, your sex drive will plummet and you will be even with him then.

 

My sex drive may plummet at 43, but I have a good twenty years before then. You also mentioned finding someone else to satisfy me in that department. It's not just physical (if it were, then I could probably talk him into bringing someone else in.) but it's the desire to connect intimately that I'm missing. I don't want to kiss him, or hug him beyond a friendly gesture, I'm not interested in snuggling on the couch, or holding hands walking through the mall. It's that entire area that I'm missing. If it were just the act of sex, or just not being attracted to him then maybe it would be something that I could sweep under the rug, but it's not. I feel like I'm missing something.

 

To someone that's been married for years: did you find that you lost your complete desire to be affectionate with your husband/wife? Is it something that just happens to everyone?

[CurlySpice]

1.

I don't know if you had other BF's in the past, but you should have known that a lack of sexual chemistry literally is a relationship killer almost 90% of the time. I guess that's why a lot of guys end up being "Friend-zoned" instead of made Husbands..

I did a reasonable bit of dating before I hunkered down with my husband. I was popular in high school, and I'm not saying that I got around, but I didn't enter my marriage inexperienced. It seems so cruel to 'friend-zone' my own husband, but I'm afraid that it's already happened.

 

2.

That is the WORST reason base your marital foundation on. I married my wife because I was madly in love with her and I was willing to deal with anything life threw my way, financially, emotionally, morally... anything ... as long as it meant I got to wake up next to that woman every day for the rest of my life.

Do you still find that this is the case? Or was... I'm not sure of your personal experience. Did that desire and passion to wake up beside your wife ever fizzle out?

 

3.

I'm gonna make a wild guess, but I'm thinking that if you do some soul searching, you will find that you were truly disgusted with yourself for having sex with him. Not the act itself, but your situation and the fact that as the wife of a good husband you had to pretty much "take it".

Bingo.

 

4.

My advice is move on, and find someone who you can be in love with, but also remember nobody is perfect and take the good with the bad.

I know in my heart that this is what I need to do. But you even said "take the good with the bad." There is no perfect person. My biggest concern is that there is so much good in him, and one horribly bad problem between us. I run the serious risk of giving up that amount of good in my life for the unknown, and know that if I selfishly keep him, that I am keeping him from whatever good he may find in someone else.

[ruhrohcd]

This part seems a little manipulative. Why let him support you and put you through school when you're obviously planning on leaving him ???

 

Mr. Lucky

 

 

That's what my ex did. Quit her job to go to nursuing school while I paid all the bills for me, her, and whatever child support didn't cover for her son. When my money was gone, so was she. She said she'd been thinking about leaving for 8 months; funny how her mind was made up when the money was out. Let's just say I don't remember her fondly.

[KBarletta]

To someone that's been married for years: did you find that you lost your complete desire to be affectionate with your husband/wife? Is it something that just happens to everyone?

 

As someone who has been in a 10-year relationship (7 married), I can say that at least in my case, sexual desire can be cyclical. Generally, you'll have a honeymoon period in the first couple of years where you can't keep your hands off each other. Then, once that settles down (at least in my case) it can come in waves. I've gone weeks or even a month or two where I wasn't interested in sex all that much, then I might go three or four months where I want it every day.

 

So I wouldn't base it solely on sex (which it doesn't sound like you are). One thing I NEVER lost, though, was my interest in holding hands or hugging my wife every day. Even when I was mad at her, I would still do that. If I lost that desire, I would probably get ready to pack it in.

[CurlySpice]

That's what my ex did. Quit her job to go to nursuing school while I paid all the bills for me, her, and whatever child support didn't cover for her son. When my money was gone, so was she. She said she'd been thinking about leaving for 8 months; funny how her mind was made up when the money was out. Let's just say I don't remember her fondly.

 

Not everyone is so manipulative as your wife. I expressed my lack of fulfillment to my husband (in an attempt to save my marriage), and it resulted in me going back to school. Doing something for myself. I would never take advantage of him. He's leaving to go abroad in August for schooling, it will be a financial burden on both of us. We're selling OUR home in order to finance it, and I plan on supporting him in that endeavor whether we're together or not. Sometimes it's important to hear the entire story before calling someone manipulative. My situation isn't one of betrayal or hatred, it's simply discontentment and unhappiness.

[Arieswoman]

Curlyspice,

I would go along with pteromum post #3

 

"since I couldn't (and still can't) find anything blatantly wrong with him (he makes a really wonderful husband) I said yes"

This is really not a good reason to get married.

 

Sounds like he is a great person, but if you aren't in love with him, you are better off just moving on.

 

When I was single and dating ( in between exH 1 and husband 2 ) I met some really nice chaps. One chap in particular was just what I wanted in a husband, keen on me, kind, thoughtful, romantic, my parents liked him, his parents thought I was wonderful, all my friends liked him, he had a good job with prospects and was financially secure.

 

But he didn't light my fire.....

 

The crunch came when he was offered a promotion away - in another town about 200 miles away - and he offered marriage, a nice house etc etc. I agonised over it for ages but decided I couldn't do it. I just didn't feel enough for him. I told him it was over, two sets of parents were upset and played hell with me for letting him go, but I just felt he deserved better.

 

I was ill for months over it, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep but I knew I made the right decision.

 

Now you must make the right decision.

 

Good luck. x

[KBarletta]

My situation isn't one of betrayal or hatred, it's simply discontentment and unhappiness.

 

There is such a thing as chronic dissatisfaction. Usually, these are people who aren't exactly sure what they want, but they are usually very good at recognizing what they DON'T want, and they have a hard time making long-term commitments to anything (partners, jobs, living arrangements, etc.) as a result. They have a hard time recognizing the real source of their unhappiness (because often the real answer is that it is something inside of THEM that needs to be addressed) and thus will blame one area of their life for unhappiness in another. So if they are unhappy in a relationship, for example, they'll change jobs and then be surprised when they are still unhappy.

 

Therapy can help in these cases, if you find that to be the case. I'm not saying it is, but it does happen.

[veggirl]

It doesn't sound like you were ever in love with your husband and married him anyway. You still aren't in love and you should leave because someday you'll meet someone who does give you those in love feelings and you'll probably end up cheating on the poor guy. Does he know you married him just because he's "good enough" ?

[CurlySpice]

Does he know you married him just because he's "good enough" ?

We've had good times, and we've had bad times. I've always tried to be honest with him, so I'm sure that he has some insecurities about it.

[veggirl]

We've had good times, and we've had bad times. I've always tried to be honest with him, so I'm sure that he has some insecurities about it.

 

you always tried to be honest? so you've told him you aren't and never were in love with him? and he chose to marry you anyway?